Michigan Marriage Amendment OK for now, but that could change

In this 2012 file photo, Gary Glenn of Midland, left, accepts the endorsement of a coalition of tea party groups in his unsuccessful race for the U.S. Senate. Glenn, the president of the American Family Association of Michigan, blasted Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act as "yet another instance in which tens of millions of Americans are forced to violate their consciences by subsiding behavior they believe is immoral and wrong." Sun file photo by MARK RANZENBERGER/@ranzenberger

Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court rulings that overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act and cleared the way for resumption of same-sex marriage in California will have no immediate effect in Michigan, but that could change in a few years.

“The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states, not the federal government, retain the constitutional authority to define marriage,” said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette in a statement released within minutes of the Supreme Court ruling. Michigan voters in 2004 adopted a stringent ban on same-sex marriage and domestic unions.

“Michigan itself doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage,” even those performed in other states, said Phil Pucillo, a lecturer at Michigan State University’s College of Law. Wednesday’s ruling doesn’t change that, but could open the door eventually for a federal right for Americans to marry someone of the same gender.

In one case, brought by a New York woman, the court ruled that the 1996 federal law that banned federal benefits for same-sex couples was unconstitutional. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the 5-4 majority decision, basing the ruling largely on equal-protection arguments.

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“The DOMA decision paves the way for legal challenges against anti-gay discrimination by any government, at any level, anywhere in the country,” said University of Michigan Law School Professor Julian Davis Mortensen. Mortensen has written on the topics of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, as well as marriage equality.

The other decision, also on a 5-4 vote, let stand a lower-court ruling that invalidated California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in that state. But Pucillo noted the court did not rule on the merits of the California case.

“No official in California was willing to defend the legitimacy of Proposition 8,” Pucillo said. The Supreme Court ruled that non-government backers of Proposition 8 could not stand in.

Pucillo said a slightly different Supreme Court might be willing to take a different case in a few years that would address the merits of states’ gay marriage bans. It would, however, take a state government willing to defend its state’s ban.

Schuette has shown such a willingness, and one Michigan case in particular can now move forward in federal court.

In March, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman held off ruling on a lawsuit by a same-sex Hazel Park couple seeking to jointly adopt three children and overturn the 2004 Michigan Marriage Amendment.

Specifically, Friedman said he wanted to hear the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court on the two cases it addressed Wednesday.

Carole Stanyar, the attorney for April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, said the U.S. Supreme Court rulings help her clients’ case.

“It bodes well,” Stanyar said Wednesday afternoon. “He said would rule shortly after (the U.S. Supreme Court rulings). We leave it in his hands now. He has more support now if he wants to strike down the ban.”

Stanyar said there would be no new court date set and that the judge will simply issue a written opinion.

Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown, a Democrat, is a party to the lawsuit by DeBoer and Rowse.

“I’m thrilled with the decisions,” she said. “This is an historic day. Now we have to wait for Judge Friedman to lift the stay, which I hope he does soon, and bring marriage equality to everyone in Michigan.”

But opponents blasted both decisions.

“Tens of millions of Americans believe that any ruling that legally recognizes so-called homosexual ‘marriage’ is at odds with the definition of marriage offered by Christ himself,” said Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan and author of the 2004 constitutional amendment. He called on Congress to refuse to pay federal benefits to same-sex spouses, despite the Supreme Court ruling.

“If not, this will be yet another instance in which tens of millions of Americans are forced to violate their consciences by subsidizing behavior they believe is immoral and wrong,” Glenn said.

Within hours of the high court’s mid-morning rulings, the American Civil Liberties Union announced a nationwide campaign to strike down bans on same-sex marriages.

“While same-sex couples who are married and living in one of the 12 freedom-to-marry states and the District of Columbia, will clearly be eligible for the federal protections and responsibilities afforded all other married couples,” said Kary L. Moss, executive director of ACLU of Michigan, “access to federal marital protections will take some work and time for those legally married same-sex couples who live in a state that discriminates against their marriages, including Michigan.”

A campaign to the Michigan Marriage Amendment could come in 2016, said long-time political consultant Mark Grebner of Practical Political Consulting of Lansing. The Michigan Marriage Amendment passed by nearly a 3 to 2 margin nine years ago, but Grebner thinks a repeal campaign would win three years from now.

“It’s a generational thing,” Grebner said. He said the backers of the gay-marriage ban have gone from “everybody with a few exceptions” to “a few old white men.”

Republican Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson says the high court’s rulings opens the door to challenges to Michigan’s law that defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

“I think the die has been cast,” Patterson said. “If the Supreme Court ruled that the lower court in California had it right, which threw out Proposition 8, then I think our Defense of Marriage Act in this state is probably on life support.

“I think as they’re challenged around the country, that they’ll fall like dominoes,” he said.

Grebner said the Michigan electorate in a presidential year like 2016 is younger, more liberal, less likely to be married and more Democratic than the people who vote in gubernatorial years, like 2014.

“I’d bet on it passing,” Grebner said.

Contact Charles Crumm at 248-745-4649, charlie.crumm@oakpress.com or follow him on Twitter @crummc and on Facebook. More information is at oaklandmichiganpolitics.blogspot.com. Contact Mark Ranzenberger at 989-779-6042 or mranzenberger@21st-centurymedia.com.